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Dell Latitude E6410 Review

The Dell Latitude E6410 delivers all the attributes an IT department could want in a mainstream business-notebook platform, along with the speed, features, and creature comforts to make the end users in an organization happy. It isn’t the sexiest notebook Dell offers, but traits like durability, common components, the ability to configure, and platform stability have their own allure in IT circles.

The E6410 comes clad in Dell’s Tri-Metal casing, which mixes magnesium alloy, aluminum, and zinc to create a rigid, lightweight exoskeleton. The squared-off chassis isn’t the boldest of industrial designs, but the brushed-gunmetal finish of the lid lends a bit of style, especially compared with the E-family’s arch rival, the basic-black Lenovo ThinkPad T-Series. Also, the E6410 comes in Regal Red or Regatta Blue for those who don't mind spending an extra $30. The chassis is about an inch thick and weighs about five pounds with an optical drive and extended battery installed; those dimensions and heft are in line with the Lenovo ThinkPad T410. It’s not as svelte as the thinnest and lightest full-featured 14-inch notebook, we've seen, however: the ThinkPad T410s.

The Latitude E6410 won’t win any design awards, but the brushed metal of the lid lends a sharper look than some basic black notebooks we’ve seen.

As expected of a business notebook, the E6410’s edges are laden with ports and slots. There’s a six-format flash-card slot, an optional SmartCard reader for companies that use those for security, and either an ExpressCard/54 slot or a PC Card slot (the latter for businesses with legacy PCMCIA devices still in use). You also get three regular USB ports, plus an eSATA/USB combo port for faster data transfer to an external hard drive. FireWire, VGA, DisplayPort, LAN, docking, and headphone and mic connectors also come standard; a modem is optional.

The E6410 features a modular bay for the removable optical drive. We’re pleased that you can fill the bay with a DVD-ROM module, a DVD burner (as on our test unit), or a Blu-ray drive; we do wish, though, that you could insert an extra battery, as on the ThinkPad T410s. (The swappable drives do make it easy, however, for an IT department to change out a defective drive on the spot.) That’s not to say the E6410 is without battery options: A four-cell power pack comes standard, or you can step up to a six-cell or a nine-cell battery (the latter was on our unit), which juts out the back. One nice touch is the charge indicators on the batteries themselves. Just press the button on the battery, and up to five LEDs illuminate to show you how much charge is remaining.

Beyond the optical drive and battery choices, buyers can configure the E6410 in myriad ways. Dell offers the full range of Intel Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs (up to the Core i7-620M), and the platform supports up to 8GB of RAM. Integrated Intel graphics are what comes standard, or you can step up to a dedicated Nvidia NVS 3100M graphics processor for $69—an option we think is well worth the price. Drive choices include a 160GB hard drive, a 500GB 7,200rpm drive, a 250GB drive with automatic encryption (as on our unit), or a range of solid-state drives up to 256GB. You can opt for any Windows OS from XP Pro to the variants of Windows 7. As for wireless connectivity, Dell has got you covered no matter where you are: the E6410 has 802.11a/b/g/n, WiMax 802.16e, plus two embedded mobile broadband options (HSPA + EVDO with GPS, or HSPA with GPS).

In addition to this flexibility in configuration options, IT managers will also appreciate the compatibility of the platform. Docking stations, batteries, and AC adapters are common across the Latitude E series and are guaranteed to stay the same for five year blocks of time, so it’s easier to keep spares on hand even if some users have the 14.1-inch model and others have the 15.6-inch or ultraportable models.

The left edge of the E6410 houses a VGA connector, a USB port, and an eSATA/USB combo port. The optional SmartCard reader is near the front, and around back Dell put a DispayPort connector.

As for durability, in addition to the metal exoskeleton, the E6410 features a spill-resistant keyboard. The hard drive is protected with a shock absorber, and all spinning drives also feature active protection circuitry that parks the hard drive heads in the event of bumps and drops. These features are similar to the business-rugged designs of other laptops; if you need more, opt for the E6410 ATG model, a true semi-rugged machine designed for field use.

The 14.1-inch screen of the E6410 has an LED backlight that helps deliver a particularly bright, well-saturated image. As is appropriate for a business machine, both panel choices (1,280x800, or 1,440x900 as on our unit) have an antiglare coating that does a good job of eliminating reflectivity without interfering with the richness or crispness of the screen. The E6410 includes an ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts screen brightness based on changing light conditions. In our testing, it excelled at anticipating the approximate brightness we would want in a given situation. (If you prefer, you can disable the sensor and adjust brightness manually.)

Overall, we were impressed with the image quality of the 1,440x900 panel, which delivers sharp text and a wide viewing angle in Windows apps. Video playback showed good color reproduction and no motion blur, although the sweet spot for video is much narrower; move too far off-center, and blacks show a shift to light gray. The stereo speakers flanking the keyboard deliver good volume, making the E6410 usable as a presentation platform for a small group around a conference table. We wish the speakers had more bass, however. Also, music playback sounded decidedly tinny.

The keyboard on the E6410 is excellent. Tap a key, and a gentle white backlight springs to life (a solution we prefer to the low-tech ThinkLight on the ThinkPad T series). The feel of the full-size keyboard is spot-on, with positive action and just enough audible feedback so as not to annoy those around you. As with other business laptops, the E6410 features both a pointing stick and a touch pad—but neither are ideal. The stick is responsive enough, but its nub is a little too flush with the surrounding keys. The touch pad, meanwhile, is downright tiny. Once you factor in the pad's dedicated areas for vertical and horizontal scrolling, the usable mousing surface is only about 2.75x1.5 inches.

The right edge of the machine houses the modular media bay, a FireWire port, two USB ports, and the headphone and mic jacks. The memory card reader is on the front edge.

The E6410 comes equipped with a high-res 3-megapixel Webcam. The camera delivered very good image quality in bright lighting conditions, with accurate color and exposure and just some motion blur. In a less-lit room with just a couple of table lamps on, the image was good, but motion blur was pronounced. And in a dim room, the image was unusable.

Business users will appreciate the Dell Latitude ON preboot environment. After setting up a user account, all you need to do is press the small button adjacent to the main power button to quickly access the Latitude ON interface, without booting to Windows. Icons along the bottom of the interface give you quick access to your e-mail, the Skype VoIP utility, a Web browser, and an instant-message chat program. (The last two are both open-source versions from DeviceVM.) And for users who have a remote desktop setup, where a virtual machine runs on a server that can be accessed via the Web, Dell Latitude ON lets them access that remote desktop. The included browser has most of the features of a modern browser, including tabs, bookmarks, a “most visited” list, and more. You can also find and connect to available Wi-Fi networks, change the speaker and mic volume settings, launch Windows, or power down.

We were very impressed with the performance we saw from our E6410. Equipped with the high-end 2.67GHz Core i7-620M processor, 4GB of RAM, the discrete Nvidia NVS 3100M graphics chip, and a 7,200rpm hard drive, the E6410 performed very well across the board. It scored 7,086 on the 32-bit version of PCMark Vantage, a test that measures overall system performance. That’s the second-highest score we’ve seen this year from a laptop in the thin-and-light class—just a mere rounding error behind the 7,098 that the first version of Lenovo's ThinkPad T410 delivered. The E6410 edged out both versions of the T410 on our multimedia-encoding tests, with a score of 3 minutes and 54 seconds on our Windows Media Encoder trial (which converts a video clip) and 3 minutes and 12 seconds for our iTunes test (in which the test machine converts 11 MP3 files to AAC format). Here again, the scores were among the fastest we’ve seen for the class. On Cinebench 10, which taxes all the available cores of the CPU, the E6410 scored a strong 7,132 on the 32-bit version of the test; here, the first ThinkPad T410 pulled ahead with a score of 8,564. (The newer T410s scored 6,789.)

But unlike both of the T410 units we tested, the E6410 has 3D muscle to back up its productivity prowess. Dell’s laptop scored 4,149 on our 3DMark06 test (which measures overall 3D graphics performance) at 1,024x768 resolution. That's nearly 1,000 points better than the average score for this class of laptop and well ahead of the 2,133 turned in by the ThinkPad T410s (which came equipped with integrated Intel GMA graphics and cost about $300 less than the E6410). That translates into usable 3D acceleration in the real world: The E6410 managed a very good 46.5 frames per second (fps) on our Company of Heroes gaming test at 1,024x768 and an acceptable 26.2fps at the panel’s native resolution with all effects set to high.

The E6410 sports an excellent backlit keyboard. We appreciate the dual pointing devices, but the touch pad is just too darn small.

Battery life was another bright spot for the E6410. The nine-cell extended battery ran for 3 hours and 40 minutes on our harsh DVD rundown test, in which we loop a DVD movie (with screen brightness set to 50 percent) until the playback stops. That compares well to the 2:04 delivered by the ThinkPad T410s, although that test unit came with a smaller battery. It also edged out the category average, which has fallen recently to a short 3:26. We attribute this to the higher demand for graphics performance.

Aside from Dell’s own utilities and the modules that come with your chosen OS (64-bit Windows 7 Professional, in our case), preinstalled software is kept to a minimum—which is the way it should be for an enterprise machine. You get Roxio Creator for burning CDs and DVDs, CyberLink PowerDVD for playback, and a 60-day trial of Trend Micro Internet Security. Dell backs the E6410 with a generous three-year warranty with onsite service and 24/7 tech support. Most notebooks come with only one year of coverage, so this is definitely a plus.

The quibbles we have with the Latitude E6410 are minor. We would like to see a larger touch pad and better speakers, but that’s about it. Companies looking for a laptop platform to standardize on for years to come will find the E6410 has it all.